A couple of days ago LadyBowTie celebrated her 1st birthday. In celebration, I wanted to re-post a bunch of my favorites from this last year for my new readers to enjoy and so you could reminisce with me.~Cori
What’s In Your Bag?
A couple years ago when the “green” movement hit the world…again, I gave up my plastic shopping bags. It seemed easy and painless enough to do, so that was my little contribution to the earth and I haven’t looked back at the tan filmy land-fillers since. Like many people I started to bring my own reusable cloth bags to the store and refused the plastic bags offered. How many of you have said this? “Damn it! I forgot my bag!” My forgetfulness is no exception but, what I’ve come to learn is that I do differ from a lot of people in one minor way. When I forget my tote, unless its an unreasonable amount of items, I still do NOT take the plastic bag. I carry my purchases home in my hands. Gasp!
Photo: Cori/LadyBowTie
I really didn’t think this was such a big deal but apparently it is. Packing up to go home, I gathered up my things and put my purchases from earlier that that day (vitamins and band-aids) in my arms and started out down the hall. My co-worker asked me, “Are you going to walk home like that?” “Like what?” I replied, puzzled thinking I had tucked my skirt into the back of my tights again. “Like that, with your stuff in your hands, do you want a bag?” she asked. “Umm no I’m good, its no problem, I’m not going far.” “I could never do that,” she retorts. It wasn’t that it was awkward or tiresome to carry these parcels a distance it was her feeling that everyone would be looking at what she had bought that day. They would see a small private part of her life that she preferred to keep hidden under plastic.
Do you care what your co-workers or strangers on the street bought that day? If you saw someone walking down the street with a box of cotton swabs, would it raise an alarm? Would you personally be embarrassed or shy about showing off your hairspray or paper towels?
I think the answer that the majority would give would be, “Well, it depends what it is that I’d be carrying.” For me, I don’t really care if I’m carrying anti-fungal foot cream, tampons, condoms or the latest issue of Star magazine. I really do not get bashful about my purchases. In my mind, and maybe I am naive, people are general minding their own business. They might glance at me if they are standing in the same elevator but other than that, I could care less what people think about my shopping habits. I find calm knowing that they too buy their own fruity smelling deodorant with sparkles and its safely hidden just under the surface of their WWF tote.
I know for a fact that my behavior seems odd to most. I had another co-worker of mine who was so conscious of his shopping habits that he had a really hard time even making it to the cash register with some items. Particularly, if they were not considered “manly”. For example, and I was completely baffled by this, he wanted to buy a birthday present for the daughter of a good friend. He could not buy her a Barbie. Nope, he couldn’t do it. It went racing through his head, “Ah man, what if the cashier is checking me out? What if there is a cute girl in line next to me and sees me with this stupid doll?” He had a whole list, which we discussed at great length, of the things he wouldn’t buy out of sheer embarrassment. Now, of course this is somewhat an extreme case but people really do think that cashiers an others around them are seriously judging them and their purchases. I’m going to send him this article and see if he’s changed at all since? (Hmm probably not. Ha! He will laugh I’m sure.)
Here is another perception phobia that I have witnessed. People hide their books. They will put a book cover on or tape over the title so that commuters next to them will not know what they are reading. Thank goodness for Kindle, they can rest easy and know that their reading habits will now and forever be between them and their computer. I guess there is some miniscule amount of judgment we all pass when we see someone reading something interesting. Hmm they must be smart, they are reading about quantum physics. And then there are those people that you wish covered up their reading material, just this once. I say this because one time I sat next to a girl on the subway reading Sex in the Hood: White Chocolate. A little difficult to staying neutral and unaware of my neighbor with that gem in eye-line. After that I understood completely that somethings are best buttoned-up.
I will leave you with this last question: Is it simply as my co-worker implied, that in a world where everything is so public and out there for the world to see, are we all (well not me obviously) trying to just find and hold on to any shred of privacy we can? I would love to hear your thoughts.
